I can’t believe how quickly time is passing here. It’s been a while since I’ve posted last time – and an even longer time since I’ve posted something that isn’t related to my work here. So here goes; a post about a few of the things that I’ve come to really love and appreciate about Haiti.
Fast food; I don’t mean mc d’s or arby’s or kfc or anything just as explosive – ahem – taco bell. I’m talking straight up can’t get it anywhere else Haitian street food. It comes in all types – always hot and fresh, very cheap and my favorite part; every vendor has a different recipe so you always get something different. A few of my favorites; plantains. These are addictive. Seriously, I go through withdrawal almost daily. And I justify the amounts that I eat because I know that I can’t get plantains on the mainland and seriously – where would Wisconsin get plantains? These guys come in all shapes and versions; chips, pressed, cooked and all are delicious. Another goodie; pate. Not pate as in ground up questionable meat you eat with a cracker at the hideaway. Pate like a stuffed with goodness fried hot pocket. There are all types; pate with cabbage and tomato, onion and chicken, mushrooms, hot pepper – each one is a little surprise. And finally; piklis. The wonder topping that goes on anything. It’s made from cabbage, carrots, hot pepper, vinegar, garlic and sour orange. Again, everyone makes their own version so some are pretty mild in hotness while others can be very spicy. It’s a great topping that goes on literally everything. I love it and eat so much of it my lips usually go numb.
I have my favorite vendors of course. There are two sisters who have arguably the busiest stand in all of Cap-Haitien. And yes, I am a VIP client. Their pate is so delicious and it is mystery meat free – a rare feat here. Plus, if they are out of something they will rush to make some more of it just for me. And I always get a little extra piklis.
Music: There are tons of different types of music here and the influences abound; there’s the rhythms and drumming styles of West Africa (holla back Senegal!) the percussion of the Caribbean, North American a la hip hop, classic folk via blues and blue grass. Yet, it is specifically Haitian. There’s the romance of kompa, the crazy Karnaval tunes of rahrah, and my favorite – Haitian folk. Yes, it’s traditional but there’s always a modern spin to it. Each of these songs tells a story whether it is happy, sad, funny – so if you got time check them out. A project that a few friends are working on; Lakou Mizik. There are some wonderful videos online by some wonderfully talented musicians. Just a warning, the videos are beautifully done but pretty damned catchy. They will be in your head for days.
Beaches: I’ve said it before how surprisingly amazing the beaches here are. And they still are. Breathtakingly beautiful, clear blue water that is every shade of blue to green you can think and then ten more. White sand, quiet, wind rustling through coconut trees, hidden coves. It’s beyond fantastic. My particular favorite is a beach called plage paradis – it’s only accessible by boat but once you get there fishermen greet you with crab, fish and lobster they just caught. (and the lobster is the size of my dog. Not. Joking.) the water is shallow so you can walk out almost 100 yards before you can’t touch. Flowing into the sea is a freshwater natural spring so the water is always cool. It’s idyllic and I get to go there every weekend. Oh, and there are waterfalls too.
Everyday people: You know that feeling when you move to a new place and you start venturing out to eat, drink, be merry and finally – finally! – you become a regular and everyone knows your name? I got that status immediately in Senegal, mostly because there were only two toubaks for literally miles and one was small and blond and the other was big and brunette. Easy to keep track off. In Haiti, for many reasons good and bad (which I will not get into otherwise this will turn into a very long post) it’s different. There are foreigners everywhere. We’re called blan – white – and are shouted such wherever we go. It’s annoying, but again, I’m used to it and my ability to tune it out is still one of my eight superpowers.
However, there are a few people who have come to know me more than just another blan. These are people I see and interact with on a regular basis. They usually provide me food in way or another (pate, plantains, coconut water, veggies, mangos…) but still, being able to walk up to them, greet them and talk with them and known as just another customer is a great feeling. I’m not singled out, charged twice as much, hassled – nothing. I am someone looking for a mid-day snack. A few of my favorites; Ivrose who is my snack vendor. See the paragraph above about fast food. Enough said why I love this woman. A few additional snack vendors at my schools – these women are great. Always friendly and happy to see me. And they’ve both been pregnant while I’ve been working so being who I am, make sure they are a) going to their prenatal visits b) taking their prenatal vitamins c) having birth assisted by a trained midwife. There’s also my drink family who I stop and grab a limeade about three times a week, the two young bucks who fill my drinking water for me, the happiest money changer in the world, my phone credit guy who always asks about my family back home since he knows he provides the credit which allows me to talk to them. I love interacting with these people and they always make me happy and put me in a good mood.
And finally… my apartment: Not just the palace that is where I live. No mud, no termites, but rather a balcony, kitchen, working bathroom, living room and bedroom (WHAT?!) My apartment is just one of about eight buildings in a larger compound. Each building has about four to six apartments and most are filled by UN workers, development workers, or other foreigners. We even have a small restaurant that serves some of the best food I’ve had in country. What I really love about this place is the sense of community it provokes. There are Americans to be sure, Canadians, Africans, Europeans, and more. Everyone is friendly to everyone else and it’s not uncommon to be impromptu invited to have tea or dinner someplace. It’s peaceful and quiet and beautiful. I have an exquisite view of the Citadelle – the most famous site in all of Haiti from my rooftop. I can see parrots play in the trees from my balcony and I can hear gatherings going on as I fall asleep at night. Spoiled really, but I am so thankful for this little oasis.
That’s all for now, I’m off to the schools to begin our last month of the study. It’s crunch time! More things I love to come next post as well as a project update!
Cheers!
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Friday, April 12, 2013
Differing Environments
Being the social scientist that I am, I am fascinated and always amazed at the environments the kids in my student learn in. Like most developing countries – there are the standard crowding, lighting and circulation issues, but each school has these issues in so many different ways. To illustrate, I’ll compare our two mamba schools; Henri Christophe (HC) and Oasis.
First, what these schools have in common. Every student in every school wears a uniform. Each school in Cap-Haitien has a different one in order to tell which kid goes where. The uniforms for HC are blue checked shirts with blue pants. Oasis has orange pants and beige shirts. The school day starts at 8 am and goes until 12 pm. There is one recess. Subjects taught include geography, science, math, French, Creole and history. Three times a year students take week long tests. The grades they receive on these tests dictate whether or not they pass and move onto the next grade. This is for all schools. Now onto the differences.
Oasis is one of our largest schools in terms of enrollment. There are roughly 600 students in the school with just over 300 participating in the study. Each grade has two classes and there are also the preschool and kindergarten versions. Every class has between one and two teachers, plus there is two administrators and two groundskeepers.
The school is private, part of Baptist church in the area. This means that families pay a larger tuition for kids to attend. While almost all schools will have a tuition, private schools are more expensive but often offer better teachers or other perks like sports, school lunch, English classes, etc.
The school is located just on the outskirts of downtown Cap-Haitien. It’s on a busy road that leads to the market so there is always traffic. Just outside of the school are vendors selling snacks, food and other household items. There are three buildings which make up the school. Two are within the school’s gates and one is on the other side of the road. There is electricity, a water pump, and three flush latrines for the students to use. The classrooms are decorated with paintings and posters.
HC on the other hand is a public school located in Petit-Anse, a low-income neighborhood on the outside of town. There is no tuition for students at this school because it qualifies for a new government program in an effort to start free education nationwide. There are just 140 kids in the school – 110 are in the study. There are five teachers and one administrators for six grades. There is also a groundskeeper who will help out with repairs around the school.
Here’s the kicker. HC is a modern-day one room school house. The entire school is open to each other so there are no barriers between the classes. There is no water source and there is a hole in the back corner for kids to use for their latrine. The front of the school is a bridge over an open sewer. And there isn’t much in front of the school and only one lady selling any sort of snack or food for the kids.
So there’s some huge differences. Oasis is adequately staffed and HC isn’t. Oasis has separate rooms for classes while HC has every class hearing every other class, causing huge distractions. One of schools has water – for drinking (especially when schools get hot) and washing their hands and one doesn’t. There are latrines at Oasis so students are able to go to the bathroom cleanly while HC basically uses a spot in the back of the school. Not sanitary. One school benefits from being in a high-income area while the other is in the middle of one of the poorest areas within the metro area. Big differences.
While all of the schools in my study are lacking many things that ‘we’ (North Americans) think are vital to have in order to have a positive, effective, nurturing school environment they don’t have them here and still kids learn. And they love learning and they love being in school. I guess I am just amazed at the resilience of these kids and that they will sit in a hot, crowded, noisy room every day without eating or drinking anything just to learn some grammar.
First, what these schools have in common. Every student in every school wears a uniform. Each school in Cap-Haitien has a different one in order to tell which kid goes where. The uniforms for HC are blue checked shirts with blue pants. Oasis has orange pants and beige shirts. The school day starts at 8 am and goes until 12 pm. There is one recess. Subjects taught include geography, science, math, French, Creole and history. Three times a year students take week long tests. The grades they receive on these tests dictate whether or not they pass and move onto the next grade. This is for all schools. Now onto the differences.
Oasis is one of our largest schools in terms of enrollment. There are roughly 600 students in the school with just over 300 participating in the study. Each grade has two classes and there are also the preschool and kindergarten versions. Every class has between one and two teachers, plus there is two administrators and two groundskeepers.
The school is private, part of Baptist church in the area. This means that families pay a larger tuition for kids to attend. While almost all schools will have a tuition, private schools are more expensive but often offer better teachers or other perks like sports, school lunch, English classes, etc.
The school is located just on the outskirts of downtown Cap-Haitien. It’s on a busy road that leads to the market so there is always traffic. Just outside of the school are vendors selling snacks, food and other household items. There are three buildings which make up the school. Two are within the school’s gates and one is on the other side of the road. There is electricity, a water pump, and three flush latrines for the students to use. The classrooms are decorated with paintings and posters.
HC on the other hand is a public school located in Petit-Anse, a low-income neighborhood on the outside of town. There is no tuition for students at this school because it qualifies for a new government program in an effort to start free education nationwide. There are just 140 kids in the school – 110 are in the study. There are five teachers and one administrators for six grades. There is also a groundskeeper who will help out with repairs around the school.
Here’s the kicker. HC is a modern-day one room school house. The entire school is open to each other so there are no barriers between the classes. There is no water source and there is a hole in the back corner for kids to use for their latrine. The front of the school is a bridge over an open sewer. And there isn’t much in front of the school and only one lady selling any sort of snack or food for the kids.
So there’s some huge differences. Oasis is adequately staffed and HC isn’t. Oasis has separate rooms for classes while HC has every class hearing every other class, causing huge distractions. One of schools has water – for drinking (especially when schools get hot) and washing their hands and one doesn’t. There are latrines at Oasis so students are able to go to the bathroom cleanly while HC basically uses a spot in the back of the school. Not sanitary. One school benefits from being in a high-income area while the other is in the middle of one of the poorest areas within the metro area. Big differences.
While all of the schools in my study are lacking many things that ‘we’ (North Americans) think are vital to have in order to have a positive, effective, nurturing school environment they don’t have them here and still kids learn. And they love learning and they love being in school. I guess I am just amazed at the resilience of these kids and that they will sit in a hot, crowded, noisy room every day without eating or drinking anything just to learn some grammar.
Out of Our Control
There are many barriers to implementing and research project. In studies such as the one I am working on, you want to be able to control for as many things as possible. Control basically means keeping things as equal between the groups as possible. This includes factors inside and outside the school; number of students at the school, economic position of the students’ families, number of boys vs. girls, ages of the students. But in real life, there is very very little you have control over in your own life and even less in a study such as this. Take a little thing like Mother Nature…
Snow days. Every child’s fantasy once that temperature goes down and the days get shorter. For kids up north, hardly ever realized because as much it may snow, there exists plows, salt, and the infamous two hour delay. But every once and a while, out of sheer volume of blizzard-like proportions there’s a snow day. Here in Haiti, it’s rain.
And not just your lazy Sunday morning rain, sip a pot of coffee all day long rain, read a few chapters, knit a few scarves rain. No. More like monsoon rain. I’m talking rain that pours and pours and pours for hours on end. Rain that creates flash floods, mud slides, gorges down the mountains. Lots of rain. And what happens the next day? Cap-Haitien literally becomes an island in itself. There’s nowhere for the water to go except downstream. But what happens when that stream gets back-up or cut off from the ocean because of construction, trash and debris? It floods roads and more importantly, people’s homes. They can’t go anywhere or do anything until the water eventually recedes. This can take days.
And schools close. If teachers don’t want to brave the flooded roads – or can’t find transportation to take them through the flooded roads, they can’t teach. If parents can’t – or won’t send their children out into the flooded street to go to school, they can’t learn. If the school itself is under water, creating a breeding haven for mosquitos (which carry malaria, dengue and other horrible shit) it can’t be open.
This doesn’t just happen once or twice a year, but drastically affects the amount of school days that are actually open. Haiti has two rainy seasons. The big one is in October/November and comes with hurricanes. This school year, for nearly two months the kids had maybe a week or two of school because there was just that much rain. Which seriously hindered our ability to begin our project and in fact, delayed the start of the distribution until after Christmas break. This shortened the project from the original length of the school year (none months) to just five. Ugh. Now, April and May – the second rainy season. Although smaller, the rain is now unpredictable. It can come at any time and no one knows for how long it will rain. It could be for twenty minutes like two nights ago. Not a big deal. Or, it could be for four hours like this past Saturday, flooding everything. A big deal.
Again, it’s unpredictable so some schools on Monday could still be flooded and others not at all. And rather than a school district deciding whether to close all schools in an area, it’s up to the school director to decide. So if you happen to go to a school with a not so passionate, actually kinda lazy director you won’t have school and you won’t get mamba and you won’t be learning the same amount as other kids.
As you can imagine, this is a much larger problem than just for this study. But for us, it’s frustrating. We want the kids to be eating the mamba as much as possible – but in order for that to happen, they have to be in school. And we want every kid to be eating the same amount as any other kid, aka we want ALL the schools to be open when ALL the other schools are. When they’re not, the kids aren’t benefiting from getting an extra food source and it makes the data we collect harder to show an impact. We could have a great product here; it could be an amazing program that can seriously impact child micronutrient deficiencies. But we may also never know that because there are so many things out of our control that keep the kids from getting those benefits. A big hurdle that we have no control over what-so-ever. So while you have to accept Mother Nature’s wrath or blessing, you also have to realize what you’re giving up.
On an unrelated note, this March my study had some great visitors from Edesia, the company that makes mamba. They were able to come and visit the schools, hang out with the kids and watch as we collected our midline data. If you're interested in seeing some of the great shots their photographer snagged, check out the link to their Picasa page. Also, check out their website to learn more about mamba and other products that they make. Great people, great work and a pleasure to have worked with them.
Pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/EdesiaGlobal/EdesiaVisitToHaitiMamba#5859271158546230594
Website: www.edesiaglobal.org
Snow days. Every child’s fantasy once that temperature goes down and the days get shorter. For kids up north, hardly ever realized because as much it may snow, there exists plows, salt, and the infamous two hour delay. But every once and a while, out of sheer volume of blizzard-like proportions there’s a snow day. Here in Haiti, it’s rain.
And not just your lazy Sunday morning rain, sip a pot of coffee all day long rain, read a few chapters, knit a few scarves rain. No. More like monsoon rain. I’m talking rain that pours and pours and pours for hours on end. Rain that creates flash floods, mud slides, gorges down the mountains. Lots of rain. And what happens the next day? Cap-Haitien literally becomes an island in itself. There’s nowhere for the water to go except downstream. But what happens when that stream gets back-up or cut off from the ocean because of construction, trash and debris? It floods roads and more importantly, people’s homes. They can’t go anywhere or do anything until the water eventually recedes. This can take days.
And schools close. If teachers don’t want to brave the flooded roads – or can’t find transportation to take them through the flooded roads, they can’t teach. If parents can’t – or won’t send their children out into the flooded street to go to school, they can’t learn. If the school itself is under water, creating a breeding haven for mosquitos (which carry malaria, dengue and other horrible shit) it can’t be open.
This doesn’t just happen once or twice a year, but drastically affects the amount of school days that are actually open. Haiti has two rainy seasons. The big one is in October/November and comes with hurricanes. This school year, for nearly two months the kids had maybe a week or two of school because there was just that much rain. Which seriously hindered our ability to begin our project and in fact, delayed the start of the distribution until after Christmas break. This shortened the project from the original length of the school year (none months) to just five. Ugh. Now, April and May – the second rainy season. Although smaller, the rain is now unpredictable. It can come at any time and no one knows for how long it will rain. It could be for twenty minutes like two nights ago. Not a big deal. Or, it could be for four hours like this past Saturday, flooding everything. A big deal.
Again, it’s unpredictable so some schools on Monday could still be flooded and others not at all. And rather than a school district deciding whether to close all schools in an area, it’s up to the school director to decide. So if you happen to go to a school with a not so passionate, actually kinda lazy director you won’t have school and you won’t get mamba and you won’t be learning the same amount as other kids.
As you can imagine, this is a much larger problem than just for this study. But for us, it’s frustrating. We want the kids to be eating the mamba as much as possible – but in order for that to happen, they have to be in school. And we want every kid to be eating the same amount as any other kid, aka we want ALL the schools to be open when ALL the other schools are. When they’re not, the kids aren’t benefiting from getting an extra food source and it makes the data we collect harder to show an impact. We could have a great product here; it could be an amazing program that can seriously impact child micronutrient deficiencies. But we may also never know that because there are so many things out of our control that keep the kids from getting those benefits. A big hurdle that we have no control over what-so-ever. So while you have to accept Mother Nature’s wrath or blessing, you also have to realize what you’re giving up.
On an unrelated note, this March my study had some great visitors from Edesia, the company that makes mamba. They were able to come and visit the schools, hang out with the kids and watch as we collected our midline data. If you're interested in seeing some of the great shots their photographer snagged, check out the link to their Picasa page. Also, check out their website to learn more about mamba and other products that they make. Great people, great work and a pleasure to have worked with them.
Pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/EdesiaGlobal/EdesiaVisitToHaitiMamba#5859271158546230594
Website: www.edesiaglobal.org
Thursday, March 21, 2013
A Coordinated Effort
These past two weeks have been more than busy for me and my team. We just finished with our midline data collection! In other words, we just measured, weighed, conducted BIA and hemoglobin tests for 1167 kids. Oh yea, and we did it in nine days. It may not sound like much of a feat but let me explain the events leading up to these whirlwind weeks.
Midline was originally scheduled for two weeks; the 11th through the 22nd. Then we found out from the schools that Easter break was actually starting March 15th, moving everything up a week. No problem, we thought. It’s still two weeks and it’ll give us plenty of time. Then we realized—the kids don’t go to school all day. The Haitian school system is set up so that most schools are actually two schools in one. There is a morning school from 8-12 that has students, staff and administrators. Then, from 1-5 a completely different set of students, staff and administrators come and have their classes. So we actually only had 4 hours everyday to measure our kids, not 8. Yikes.
Then, quelle surprise, we find out that the week before break is the testing week for schools. Again, a difference between Haitian and US schools- kids take a series of three exams during the school year. These tests determine if a child passes or fails. While students get homework, this isn’t graded and the culmination of grades isn’t from assignments, it’s these tests. Three times a year (December, March and June) students take a week long exam which compiles their grades. So this week was not only important for us because we were collecting our data – it was more important for the children as it decides whether or not they pass their grade. As a result, we realized that while testing was going on, we wouldn’t be able to measure the students. (It would be counterproductive in the grand scheme of things to pull a child out of the most important test of the year to get weighed and measured.) So our second week, 4 hour work days suddenly became 2 hour days. Needless to say I was beginning to get nervous.
So March 4th rolls around (oh yea- we only measure during school days; Monday through Friday) and we begin. To my absolute delight, we completely measure 175 kids. 175 out of 1167 done just like that. Things were looking up. And, to my absolute delight again, my team didn’t let up. The eleven of us were able to hunker down and get all of our kids done in nine days, giving us a day off. I was completely blown away by their ability to focus on the tasks at hand, find a rhythm and rock it. Everyday there was a team leader and that leader was in charge of organizing the kids, setting people’s tasks, and keeping the momentum going.
We had two teams so that we could do two schools at once. We started with the larger schools in order to cause the least amount of disruption during testing. We also tried to coordinate schools by area so that teams worked in schools closer together, allowing less travel and driving around. And it worked. While the teams worked, my counterpart Windy and I drove around making deliveries, bringing supplies, and making sure everything was going smoothly. It was one of the best coordinated efforts I have seen in my limited international work and I was truly impressed. Everyone knew they were part of a team, knew the mission, and worked to get it done.
That’s not to say we didn’t have our hiccups. In the developing world, there are always hiccups and usually these hiccups are chronically occurring. They’re always happening so you have to learn to adjust and work around them. And we eventually did. The biggest bump in the road, besides the crappy road to one of our schools was the testing. Because it was testing week, we started our measurements later, giving the students time to take their tests. However, tests were only an hour or so long. After that, teachers let the kids go home. This meant we had a precious window to catch kids that needed to be measured and quickly get them done. I mean, what kid is going to want to sit around and wait to get prodded and pricked while they have basically a day off of school? As a result, we were always searching for students and always missing some at the end of the day. How did we solve it? Classroom games.
To their credit, most of the teachers at these schools are very helpful. Most. After finishing exams, we were able to get teachers to play games with their students until we were ready for them. Hangman, guessing games, math games – whatever worked. And it did. Kids want to be in school, they like learning and they especially like learning in a way that’s fun and not the standard repetition. I loved it for many reasons; kids were engaged and enjoying themselves, they were staying at the school longer, we got our measurements done, and the schools were involved. A win for everyone.
Yep, our two weeks of measuring was a success. And to end it, we took a staff day to the beach. Granted, it happened to be on a day that was a complete downpour, but once we got over the mountain framing the city, the rains stopped and we were able to enjoy ourselves. The perfect ending to a hard-working week.
Midline was originally scheduled for two weeks; the 11th through the 22nd. Then we found out from the schools that Easter break was actually starting March 15th, moving everything up a week. No problem, we thought. It’s still two weeks and it’ll give us plenty of time. Then we realized—the kids don’t go to school all day. The Haitian school system is set up so that most schools are actually two schools in one. There is a morning school from 8-12 that has students, staff and administrators. Then, from 1-5 a completely different set of students, staff and administrators come and have their classes. So we actually only had 4 hours everyday to measure our kids, not 8. Yikes.
Then, quelle surprise, we find out that the week before break is the testing week for schools. Again, a difference between Haitian and US schools- kids take a series of three exams during the school year. These tests determine if a child passes or fails. While students get homework, this isn’t graded and the culmination of grades isn’t from assignments, it’s these tests. Three times a year (December, March and June) students take a week long exam which compiles their grades. So this week was not only important for us because we were collecting our data – it was more important for the children as it decides whether or not they pass their grade. As a result, we realized that while testing was going on, we wouldn’t be able to measure the students. (It would be counterproductive in the grand scheme of things to pull a child out of the most important test of the year to get weighed and measured.) So our second week, 4 hour work days suddenly became 2 hour days. Needless to say I was beginning to get nervous.
So March 4th rolls around (oh yea- we only measure during school days; Monday through Friday) and we begin. To my absolute delight, we completely measure 175 kids. 175 out of 1167 done just like that. Things were looking up. And, to my absolute delight again, my team didn’t let up. The eleven of us were able to hunker down and get all of our kids done in nine days, giving us a day off. I was completely blown away by their ability to focus on the tasks at hand, find a rhythm and rock it. Everyday there was a team leader and that leader was in charge of organizing the kids, setting people’s tasks, and keeping the momentum going.
We had two teams so that we could do two schools at once. We started with the larger schools in order to cause the least amount of disruption during testing. We also tried to coordinate schools by area so that teams worked in schools closer together, allowing less travel and driving around. And it worked. While the teams worked, my counterpart Windy and I drove around making deliveries, bringing supplies, and making sure everything was going smoothly. It was one of the best coordinated efforts I have seen in my limited international work and I was truly impressed. Everyone knew they were part of a team, knew the mission, and worked to get it done.
That’s not to say we didn’t have our hiccups. In the developing world, there are always hiccups and usually these hiccups are chronically occurring. They’re always happening so you have to learn to adjust and work around them. And we eventually did. The biggest bump in the road, besides the crappy road to one of our schools was the testing. Because it was testing week, we started our measurements later, giving the students time to take their tests. However, tests were only an hour or so long. After that, teachers let the kids go home. This meant we had a precious window to catch kids that needed to be measured and quickly get them done. I mean, what kid is going to want to sit around and wait to get prodded and pricked while they have basically a day off of school? As a result, we were always searching for students and always missing some at the end of the day. How did we solve it? Classroom games.
To their credit, most of the teachers at these schools are very helpful. Most. After finishing exams, we were able to get teachers to play games with their students until we were ready for them. Hangman, guessing games, math games – whatever worked. And it did. Kids want to be in school, they like learning and they especially like learning in a way that’s fun and not the standard repetition. I loved it for many reasons; kids were engaged and enjoying themselves, they were staying at the school longer, we got our measurements done, and the schools were involved. A win for everyone.
Yep, our two weeks of measuring was a success. And to end it, we took a staff day to the beach. Granted, it happened to be on a day that was a complete downpour, but once we got over the mountain framing the city, the rains stopped and we were able to enjoy ourselves. The perfect ending to a hard-working week.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
a little bit of my haiti
just a little snapshot into my first couple of months here. the mountains of cap-haitien, scome of the school kids i work with, and the beaches where i get to relax. life. is. good.
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